The Payday Loan Shuffle!

Payday loansare the financial equivalent of a death trap! Before you know it, they’ve multiplied around town like jackrabbits! Multiple payday loans are a lot of work. By the time you get finished running around town paying them off and then borrowing again, you find yourself taking a lunch break between them because it takes up half your damn day! My buddies and I came up with a term for this phenomenon. We call it “The Shuffle.”

The term “Shuffle” came about from the fact that a person has to shuffle all over town every 2 weeks to payback and re-borrow payday loans. The reality is that once you get your first payday loan you’ll most likely end up with 3 or more before too long. Payday loans are easy enough to get into but hard as hell to get out of.

The shuffle does not come without at least some self-perception of embarrassment or shame. Every time you leave your house to start the shuffle, you find yourself hoping that you don’t run into any of your friends or co-workers as you enter or exit the shuffle location. It’s not uncommon to park your car around the corner and walk half a block to the shuffle as to not have your car seen parked right outside the shuffle. Either real or imagined, the shame of having been caught up in the shuffle is still there.

On some days you’ll see a person ahead of you in line at one location and then by the time you get to your next shuffle, you’ll see that same person as they are trying to wrap up their own damn shuffles. Sometimes you’ll acknowledge each other but most times you just go in and try to keep your head down.

Multiple shuffles will eventually turn into a financial nightmare and the only way you’ll be able to wake up from it is to “burn” them all at once by closing your bank account so they can’t collect their money via electronic funds transfer (EFT) when payday rolls around. Now you’re forced to open another checking account at a new bank before the shuffle place reports you to “Check Systems.”

Oh, and don’t forget about the cute girl that works in the shuffle location that you’d love to ask out if not for the fact that you’re in there shuffling every other damn week and it just wouldn’t feel right asking her on a date. But let’s play it out…

Me: Hello Kathy…I was wondering if I could take you out to lunch sometime?

Kathy: Well, I would but I’m always working and with me studying for my masters I really don’t have a lot of free time to hangout, but thank you though.

Translation: Dude, you’re here borrowing money every other damn week. How in the hell can you afford to take me out?

You can see how this probably wouldn’t go over too well.

Part of the problem is that payday loans are everywhere you turn these days. Where I live there must be at least 15 of them within about a 2 mile stretch of road on either side of the street, so the temptation is there. Luckily for me, I’ve managed to break the cycle and get out the shuffle but it was not easy by any stretch of the imagination.

Take it from me. Avoid the shuffle at all costs. It’s too much work and it’s just not worth it.

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Fiverr.com: Where everything is just $5

Fiverr is not your standard website. They are very unique. Although Bill Collectors Hate Me typically focuses on issues related to credit, debt and collections, we would be remiss if we did not share with you the money saving benefits of fiverr!

At fiverr you can request almost any service you could possibly dream of for just $5. In fact, my current Facebook Fan Page and Blog banners were created at fiverr. Before fiverr, these services would have cost me a minimum of $75 a piece!

The services at fiverr are not limited to blogs and websites. They also offer custom t-shirt and mug designs, business cards, proofreading, radio advertising, and so much more!

Fiverr is one of the best bargains we’ve ever seen. Do yourself a favor and check out fiverr for huge savings on just about any service you could imagine!

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GLC cautions against presuming non-payment of bedroom tax arrears leads to 'intentional homelessness'

A number of recent housing articles and commentators have suggested that where a tenant is evicted due to the inability to pay rent due to under-occupancy (bedroom tax) deductions, they will 'usually be classified as intentionally homeless', and not be entitled to alternative accommodation as a homeless person. This is not a correct statement of the law in Scotland or England, Wales or Northern Ireland.

The statutory intentional homelessness test requires a deliberate act or omission in consequence of which accommodation is lost. This essentially requires local authorities to consider the issue of fault. For example, in the English Court of Appeal case of William v. London Borough of Wandsworth the court expressed this test as follows:

"I accept, of course, that it was for the authority to explain why it took the view that the failure to pay monies due under the mortgage was 'deliberate' within the meaning of section 191(1) of the 1996 Act: or, to put the point the other way, why the failure to pay monies due under the mortgage was not properly to be treated as 'non-deliberate' – in the sense that it was forced upon the applicant through no fault of his own" (at para 36, [2006] EWCA Civ 535).

Where a tenant is paying rent (by way of housing benefit) but accrues rent arrears due to the effect of the bedroom tax and is unable to take any reasonable steps to avoid this, then there would be a strong presumption that this was not the 'fault' of the tenant. If so, a tenant in such circumstances who lost their home should not be deemed intentionally homeless. There is ample authority for this principle, for example:

In R v. Tower Hamlets London Borough Council ex parte Mahmood a council tenant was evicted for arrears.  She was found to have become homeless intentionally. Sir Louis Blom-Cooper Q.C quashed the council’s decision as it failed to indicate whether the council had found that Ms Mahmood deliberately failed to pay her rent – as opposed to being in multiple debt and unable to pay.

R v. Tower Hamlets London Borough Council ex parte Ullah (1992) 24 HLR 680 was a case where an owner occupier in multiple debt sold his house to repay debts: insufficient enquiries were made into the necessity of this course of action and a decision of intentional homelessness was quashed by the court.

Tenants in the South and North East of Glasgow can contact Govan Law Centre's Prevention of Homelessness team for further advice and where possible legal representation: (t) 0141 440 2503.

Credit Reporting: Why the 7 year rule is a LIE!

Over the years we’ve all heard about the 7 year rule as it relates to credit reporting. Basically, the rule states that any and all accurate information must remain on your credit reports for 7 full years. Now, the question is: Is this statement true? Well, the answer is both yes and no.

Let me explain...If you simply accept the "accurate" derogatory reporting and do nothing, then the answer is yes and you’d be correct in the definition of the 7 year rule. Sounds simple enough right? Not so fast. The key phrase is “if you accept it and do nothing.”

I've never been one to believe something just because everyone else says it’s true. I do my own research. I briefly touched on this subject in a July article entitled “Top Credit Repair Myths” listed under lie #2. Credit bureaus try to convince consumers that their rules are non-negotiable but what they don’t tell you is that everything is disputable. They don’t want you to know this because it creates extra work for them. But also, it threatens to weaken the foundation that the credit bureaus were built on.

If everyone knew that they could work around the system, then credit bureaus would lose their “perceived” power and control over the consumer so they keep everything hush-hush and continue selling the lie that what they say is how it is, what it is and is non-negotiable!

So getting back to my point, the 7 year rule is a lie “IF” you do “something” rather than sit back and do “nothing,” which is what they prefer you do. For instance…let’s say that you have a 2 year derogatory item on your TransUnion credit report that is 100% accurate and belongs to you. If you sit back and do nothing, then the 7 year rule becomes fact. Now, if you dispute the negative item and the creditor cannot verify or validate the debt within 45 days, then the credit bureaus MUST remove the derogatory item from your credit report. Period. That’s the law.

I have successfully used this strategy many times over the years to have accurate derogatory information removed from my credit reports long before the 7 year mark...sometimes in as little as 45 days! It makes me laugh when people tell me that it can’t be done when I've been doing it for the past 20 years!!!

This is why credit bureaus try to convince you that credit repair companies are a waste of money and don’t work. They know that the good companies are effective at finding and exploiting loopholes in the law and it drives them nuts because it threatens their bottom line. Credit bureaus make money by selling your information to any creditor / bill collector that’s willing to pay for it. If consumers go “bucking the system” then they can’t make money.

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